Each of us has a set of strengths and weaknesses. A friend recently asked me what he should do in order to improve on his weaknesses. We all have those areas in our lives where we have to work twice as hard as someone else who excels in these areas just to reach a level of success that we consider acceptable. My response to my friend was for him to stop focusing on his weaknesses and instead spend time working on his strengths and improving performance in the areas of business where he has natural talent.
I could tell this advice caught him off guard. He responded with, “Well I don’t need to work on those areas, I’ve got them down, I need to spend time on what I don’t do well so I can be more balanced and well rounded as a professional.” I explained how I believe he could get more things done, make a greater contribution to his business, and have more overall success focusing on his strengths and not his weaknesses.

His response was probably what you are thinking as well, “So what do I do with my weaknesses?”

Here is how I’ve learned to approach my weaknesses:

Delegate the weakness to someone else that can perform the task better and more efficiently than you can. Even if you don’t have employees or an assistant there are options for you. Look into hiring a virtual assistant to perform the most basic to complicated tasks for you.

Use systems to manage the weakness. If you struggle with priority management, organization, or staying-in-touch with past clients and your referral partners, there are systems to help you. Once you’ve setup the system it should perform on auto-pilot so you can focus on your strengths.

Spend limited focused time on the weakness. We all have areas in our job that we would love to delegate but are a requirement of the job title. Look at your calendar and schedule uninterrupted time each week where you can focus your time on performing these tasks. Do them accurately but do them quickly; knowing that when you are done you can move onto focusing your time in your strength zone.

Everyone seems to know the areas we are weak in but few of us have ever taken the time to identify our strengths. Here are a few resources for you: